


Drive, young man, drive

by Multifandom_damnation



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Accidental Bonding, Billy Hargrove & Maxine "Max" Mayfield Have a Good Relationship, Billy Hargrove Needs a Hug, Billy Hargrove Redemption, Character Death Fix, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Post-Season/Series 03, Step-siblings, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-09 16:36:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19890958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multifandom_damnation/pseuds/Multifandom_damnation
Summary: Some nights, Billy didn’t sleep.Instead, he stayed up for as long as he could, blindly watching any boring show that came up on TV, and desperately tried not to close his eyes. Sometimes, he thought he could feel the great shadow breathing down his neck and the tingling sensation in his limbs that he made him feel like he was drowning.When not even the sound of the TV could calm his nerves, he grabbed his keys and maybe a jacket and made his way out to his Camaro, his trusty Camaro who never did him wrong even if there was a huge dent in the side and broken glass from where Harrington dove another car into him, and made his way through the darkened streets of Hawkins.





	Drive, young man, drive

**Author's Note:**

> As I've said... I've not yet watched the show... but I feel like over time... Max would try and bridge the gap between her and Billy.
> 
> Also, Max hates Neil and sometimes Billy cares about his sister;
> 
> I used the word pussy because that's what he uses in the flashbacks, right? His dad calls him one, and he calls the boy one when he was beating him up.

Some nights, Billy didn’t sleep.

Instead, he stayed up for as long as he could, blindly watching any boring show that came up on TV, and desperately tried not to close his eyes. Sometimes, he thought he could feel the great shadow breathing down his neck and the tingling sensation in his limbs that he made him feel like he was drowning.

When not even the sound of the TV could calm his nerves, he grabbed his keys and maybe a jacket and made his way out to his Camaro, his trusty Camaro who never did him wrong even if there was a huge dent in the side and broken glass from where Harrington dove another car into him, and made his way through the darkened streets of Hawkins.

There was still this insatiable anger inside him that he couldn’t always quell, something so much stronger than the anger he felt every day, something deeper and darker and not all his own. His body still ached and his bones still trembled with every thought of that never-ending agony and it was all he could do to not think about all those people he killed, all those lives he ruined, all those people he broke.

Driving helped. It was a mindless task, one he could do without paying attention to it, but it was still something so familiar that he could forget. Forget about everything he did. Forget about everything _he_ made him do.

Neil would give him crap for not picking up his sisters slack or for making sure he always knew where she was, but Billy just didn’t care. Not anymore. Not when the pain he was already going through was so much worse than anything Neil could do.

Sometimes, Max would watch him, and Billy would know she was because he had always been good at knowing when people were watching him around corners and whispering about him behind his back. She stayed away from him, because why wouldn’t she? Why wouldn’t she stay away from the step-brother who she hated so much, who had almost helped end the world, who nearly sacrificed her best friend to a giant, interdimensional monster? Billy would do the same thing.

But Max was different. She had always been different. Even before, before everything went to shit, she would leave food outside his bedroom door when he didn’t have the energy to make his way to the dinner table, or bring him little trinkets that she knew he would like when he was having a bad day, would sing his favourite songs at the top of her lungs when they were home alone just so Billy could know that Max was there and that she understood.

Although, she never could understand. Her mother was still by her side. Neil didn’t hit her. She was loved. She was cared for. She always had someone to look out for her. Billy didn’t, and never, had any of that.

Once and a while, when Billy was well enough to start doing any physical activity again without straining his healing body too badly, Max would sit on the steps to the garage and watch Billy fix his car, replace the glass, even out the dent in the door, re-do the paint job. She would sit there in silence while he worked, reading a book or watching him while he fixed his most prized possession, and if he was in a good enough mood, he would even answer her questions about the different parts of the car.

She knew how to fix the car and all the valuable parts to it, because Billy had taught her by making her do all the work, so all of her questions were just background chatter, and sometimes she asked obvious questions with obvious answers that normally got on Billy’s nerves, but he couldn’t find it within himself to muster up the energy to be angry.

Even after it all, Billy still worked his ass off at the swimming pool as the best damn lifeguard that place could get, mostly because he needed the money, partly because he wanted to do everything he could to get away from the house. Nobody knew that he was the one the shadow had used to almost destroy Hawkins and everyone in it, they just thought he was injured in the aftermath, so really it wasn’t hard to pretend.

He felt bad for Heather. She was a ditz and he didn’t like her all that much, but she didn’t deserve the fate that Billy handed her. Or her mother. Or her father.

But Max… she tried, in her weird way. She knew when Billy needed his space, and she knew when him being alone with his thoughts was too dangerous. Mostly to himself, no so much to others. Mostly because he couldn’t stand being around other people lately.

Being home felt like pulling teeth without anaesthesia to Billy. Neil was his same prick of a man who spoke to Billy like he was pond scum and threw him up against walls and hit him until he blistered and bruised like he was his father’s own personal punching bag. Susan kept her distance from Billy like she always did, but now when Neil hit him, she watched with an air of satisfaction and a glint in her eye, like she felt like he deserved it.

And Max. Young, stupid Max, who looked at him like she forgave him and never failed to turn a smile his way. She who could stand to even be in the same room as him. Who treated him with kindness he didn’t deserve. Not after everything he had done. Not after how he had treated her.

So Billy, in an attempt to separate himself from the home and everything he hated, did the only thing he could do.

He drove.

But tonight… tonight Max was watching him from the doorway as he gripped at his arms and tried to rip away his skin and pull out his hair and tremble and when he reached for his keys from where they were sitting on the kitchen counter she asked, “Can I come with you tonight?”

That made Billy pause from where he was pulling on his leather jacket. Her voice sounded so tentative yet so hopeful that he wasn’t quite sure how to refuse. He would prefer to be alone, of course, just him and the road and the rumble of his car, but maybe, just this once…

He threw his jacket at her and she caught it before the metal hit her in the face. “Fine,” he grunted. “It’s cold. Put the jacket on.”

She didn’t question him as she followed him to the door, which was odd, but Billy had decided to take his blessings where he could get them

Despite how late it was, Neil was still awake and had been lounging in the garden with a beer, and he came in to try and stop them. Thankfully, Billy had a lot of experience with avoiding Neil and leaving the house when he was trying to stop him, so they were out of there before Neil could reach them. Out of the corner of his eye, Billy saw Max turn around and stick her tongue out at him and unfortunately, the door closed before Billy could see his face.

The inside of the Camaro was cool, because it the cold air outside had chilled it right through the metal and into the leather of the seats, and Billy was glad that Max had his jacket, even if she was drowning in the size of it. Otherwise, she would have been wearing nothing but her pyjamas with the purple stripes.

They drove for quite a while before any of them spoke, the roar of the engine in the night enough background noise for the both of them, but eventually Max broke their tentative silence. “You’ve been sleeping less. And you come out here all the time.” She waved her hand out the window. “You still think about it, don’t you? About _him_?”

Billy’s hands tightened on the steering wheel, but Max didn’t even flinch. She wasn’t scared of him anymore.

They didn’t talk about what happened, both because it was still too raw and fresh for Billy to even think about without dry heaving and because he thought that it was obvious, at least to Max who saw the whole thing, that he still had nightmares about the shadow. She was looking at him expectantly, which meant that she was waiting for an answer that Billy wasn’t sure he could give. “Why wouldn’t I? You’re the one watching me at all hours of the day. You tell me.”

Max turned back to the road. “If it makes you feel any better, I still think about it. About how we locked you in the sauna. Even when you begged me to let you out.” she paused. “I wasn’t going to, you know. I thought about it, but I wasn't going to.”

“Good. I wouldn’t have blamed you,” Billy said. “You would have been stupid if you had.”

“Yeah,” Max laughed then, and Billy hadn’t realized what a sweet sound it was. “I guess so. You taught me well.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Billy spotted the bright lights of a 7-11, still opened even at such an early hour of the morning, and he pulled into the driveway. Max looked at him, confused, and maybe a little scared, but for an entirely different reason. She looked shocked when he grabbed his wallet and opened the door without even a glance at her. “Get out,” he said.

Acting on instinct, Max scrambled out the door before Billy could lock her inside the Camaro. “Uh…” she began as she looked at the bright lights of the servo and Billy walking towards the front doors. “What are we doing here?”

“I’m buying you a damn slushy Max, what the fuck does it look like I’m doing?”

Slightly awestruck, Max padded into the servo, the lights too bright after the darkness of the road, and let Billy pay for her slushy. He got one for himself, of course, but he let her pick whatever cup she wanted in whatever size, and brought her favourite chocolate bar from the front.

Back in the car, Billy sipped on his straw and watched Max out of the corner of his eye as she looked at the drink sceptically. “I didn’t poison the damn thing. If you don’t want it, give it here, or just throw it out the window. I don’t care.”

“No… no,” Max said, almost too eager. “Just... thank you. I don’t remember the last time I had one of these.”

“Well, just because I live to spite my old man, how about next time I take you out for ice-cream?” Billy joked. “Who cares if it’s three in the morning. Nobody is going to stop us.”

But Max had paused and was looking at him with wide eyes, full of hope and shock and a little bit of desperation. “Next time…?”

It took Billy longer than he would have liked to notice the slip-up. He hadn’t realized that those words had even come from his mouth for a few beats, but then he was going ashen and choking on his breath and wondering why the hell he had said that. But then it hit him. Maybe, if every time went like this did, he wouldn't mind spending a bit more time with his piece of shit little sister, who for some reason was wanting to spend time with him. “Yeah,” Billy said eventually. “Next time.”

There was a spark in Max’s eye as she clutched the slushy to her chest and stared out into the darkness and the road disappearing under the tires of the Camaro. “Next time.” She whispered to herself, teary-eyed. Billy decided to give her this moment in peace.

They didn’t spend much time together, not willingly anyway. Even before, Billy was forced to drive her places and look out for her when there were a thousand other things he could have been doing, and at the time, he told himself that he wasn’t doing it because Neil told him to, he was doing it because you always looked out for family, but after everything that’s happened and all they had gone through, Billy knew that it was always to satisfy Neil.

Billy wasn’t sure if it had something to do with Max being in the car or talking about all the terrible things that _he_ had made him do, but suddenly he felt the cold crawling of fingers on the back of his neck, his lungs grew tight and his vision faded to that of a foggy window in winter and he could feel the car start to veer off track despite his attempt to straighten it.

As the panic began in envelop him, Billy worried for Max’s safety and hated the fact that he couldn’t drag himself out it of it, that she had to see him being a _pussy_ , a little kid afraid of the monsters under their bed, and hated himself a million times over because he shouldn’t have let her come in the first place, this was a huge mistake, he knew what was going to happen, how could he have been so _blind_ …

“Billy?” Max placed a hand on Billy’s shoulder, her skin cold from where she was holding onto her frozen drink, and it snapped Billy out of whatever dark place he was in. “Are you alright?”

“Fine,” He gasped out, fingers tightening on the wheel again just to give him something to focus on, something to ground him other than Max’s cold fingers. “’m fine.”

Max looked at him worriedly for a moment while Billy got his breathing back under control and he swerved the car back onto the road. She didn’t mention it, not really, but Billy knew that she was thinking about how fucked up he was. “You know, he’s gone, right? He can’t hurt you anymore.”

Every agonizing wound in Billy’s body pulsed in blinding white-hot pain and he remembered the feeling of its many toxic teeth sinking into his flesh and grinding away at his bones. “Sure.” He said though he didn’t believe it for a second. He still felt _his_ claws digging into him in his dreams and _his_ voice in his head telling him to obey, but Billy knew he was just imagining it.

It was getting late, and Max was starting to yawn around her straw, so Billy did the only thing he knew how to do.

He drove.

Honestly, he needed a smoke and a nice long drink anywhere he could get one, but he wasn’t going to stink up the car, especially not with Max about to fall asleep in the seat beside him. She may be a piece of shit, but she was still his annoying little sister.

Max spoke when he least expected her to, especially when he thought she was already asleep, as he drove past the closed Starcourt Mall, which brought back every bad memory of the past couple of months, and her voice startled him out of the silence he had become accustomed to.

“I’m sorry I nearly took your balls off with Steve’s bat in the cabin and told you to stay away from me.”

“Well, I’m sorry I tried to kill you and your friends and end the world, so I guess we’re even.”

Then Max laughed through her nose as though she were trying to hold it in behind her lips, and when Billy looked over, he realized that she had never been asleep at all. Her eyes were wide and happy when they looked into his, and for a moment, Billy couldn’t remember why he had ever hated her. “We really are a couple of fuck-ups, aren’t we?”

“Yeah, well, it runs in the family,” Billy replied with a laugh of his own and Max grinned.

After a moment, Billy pulled into the Starcourt parking lot and parked the car. It was abandoned, especially being 3:30 in the morning on a school night and the mall closing at 8, so he had plenty of places to choose from. He took the key out of the ignition and turned to Max. “I don’t give a fuck what Neil or your mum says, you’re taking the day off from school tomorrow. We can go to the arcade or something, I don’t care, but we’re not going home yet.”

“Well, obviously, it’s late. I’d have to get up in a couple of hours,” Max sent him a confused look as she glanced around at the abandoned parking lot. “What are we doing here?”

“You’ve driven before, right?” Billy said. “When I got into the fight with Harrington, you dragged me outside and took my car. That was you, wasn’t it? You drove?”

Max nodded, suspiciously. “Yeah… I don’t see what your point is.”

“Help me out here, Max,” Billy sighed. “How did you feel, doing it? Confident? Worried? Excited? Afraid?”

“I was mostly trying not to crash and kill us all, but because it was your car that I learnt how to drive in the first place, I know how everything in it worked,” Max said, looking at Billy like he was having a stroke. The look on his face was manic and his eyes were wild, and if Max didn’t know him any better, she would have thought that he was really angry with her. “Are you alright? I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me.”

Billy couldn’t even find it within himself to regret his decision as he unclipped his seatbelt and started to get out of the car, Max following suit. “If we’re going to get closer now, then you’re going to have to learn how to drive with confidence,” Billy said and Max gawked. “Get your butt in that seat.”

“Are you… are you _serious_?” Max was gaping like a fish. “You’re going to let me drive your car?”

“You’re old enough now to start learning, and maybe if you’re good enough out here in the parking lot, we can move on to the roads.” Billy smiled at the way Max started to squeal and bounce up and down. “Nobody’s going to stop us. But don’t think for a second that if you crash it, I won’t make you fix it.”

Squealing in excitement, Max rushed forward and wrapped her arms around Billy’s torso in the tightest, warmest hug he had gotten in a long time, and dashed around the car to slide into the driver’s seat.

For a moment, it was all Billy could do to keep himself from falling over, the kindness in Max’s hug burrowing deep within him and for a moment, driving away the pain in the darkness still festering within him and he took a deep breath of cold, fresh air. Max honked the horn impatiently. Laughing, Billy slipped into the passenger seat and watched her vibrate with excited energy. “Alright, turn the key. That’s it.” The engine rumbled to life. “Now press down on the peddle, but slowly, _slowly…”_

Maybe Billy’s nights just got a whole lot better.

**Author's Note:**

> ALSO, I CAN MAKE STROKE JOKES BECAUSE I'VE HAD ONE SO DON'T TELL ME OFF BECAUSE I FIND IT FUNNY
> 
> (if you have any questions, just let me know, I'll be happy to answer them. If you made it this far, I hoped you enjoyed it)


End file.
